 You ask, we answer. Welcome to Can This Marriage Be Saved, where we go up against common relationship problems and help you determine if this relationship should stay or go. Hey everybody and welcome to this week's issue. You're here with Rivka and Shlomo Slakin on this rainy day here in Baltimore. And I had an experience this week that I knew I just had to share with you all because it was so, just it shows so much and I think all of you can really relate to it and it really affected me. So I had an important issue that I needed to discuss with somebody about one of my children and I was kind of, you know, emotional about it. And I felt that at the end of the conversation there was really no resolution or really nothing that felt good to me. And I, after the conversation I sent a text message to the person I had been speaking to and I said, you know, in so many words I said it would be really nice to just be validated for, you know, my feelings. And the person wrote back, I just can't do that. I don't have enough information about the situation to validate you. And I just felt so like invalidated. Well, I felt like I was just left hanging. And here it was like this sad thing that I was feeling and the person just could not stretch. And I'm not expecting this person to, you know, know a mongo or fulfill me the same way, you know, somebody who does this work would. But I just would like, I really wanted just some common like, yeah, that makes a lot of sense, you know, where I can see why you would have been upset, even if she didn't agree with me about what I was upset about. I just really wanted some validation. And I came home and I went to my wonderful husband. And I said, you know, could you just like validate me or something? I just felt so lost. And I was thinking of all of you because I was thinking, you know, this person is not related to me. She's not somebody who, you know, is like a family member. So it's okay, you know, I can I have to see her, but it's okay, you know, she's a nice lady and it's fine. It's not going to make or break things for me. But what if she was my husband? Or what if, you know, she was your wife slow mo? And, you know, being married to somebody who is just not validating or is not understanding what that means to like hear you. It's just very lonely. And so I really wanted to bring this up with all of you. Shalmo time in. Yeah, I think one of for those of you who are familiar with the dialogue process, we may have read about it in our book, five steps to a happy and healthy marriage in chapter four and acknowledge the other. You may have even watched our video, or even have the marriage mastery school with the video in it. But I find that when working with couples, the validation piece, I always have to give them like a little bit of warning beforehand because it's not something that we're used to doing. Because validation is not about giving in or, you know, acknowledging that the other person is right or wrong or agreeing. It's acknowledging that the other person has the right to feel the way they're feeling. And it's really not about you. And I think that's one of the hardest things for people to do is to really go out of oneself and go into the world of the other and really be there for them. So whether she agreed with you or didn't, the point is, this is what you are feeling. This is what you experienced. And you just wanted that to be acknowledged that, yeah, makes a lot of sense that you do feel that way. As opposed to, well, I don't know enough information to validate you. So therefore I can't do it. Validation is not about objective truth that we have to verify whether something is accurate or not. And only then can we acknowledge your feelings. No, it's about acknowledging the way that you're feeling your experience, regardless of whether it's, maybe you're completely delusional. You made up a whole, this is a story in your head. It doesn't matter. This is the way you're experiencing it. And you have a right to have your feelings. So I always coach couples that I want you to realize that you're not agreeing, you're not agreeing with the other person. Maybe you do agree, but it doesn't matter. You're just really showing that you heard what they had to say and that they have a right to feel what they're feeling. And what we usually, I use the simplest way to validate is just to say, what you're saying makes sense or you make sense. And that's the simplest way to validate without getting it too complicated. It really just shows and absolutely has to be done sincerely. But it shows that you're listening and that what the other person said is important to you, even if you disagree. Yeah, I remember this happened similar with, with, it was a very significant family member. And we had, you know, some budding heads around some things. And I said, you know what, let's, would you like to sit down and have an Amago dialogue with me so we can really like get to a good place. And she's like, no, I do not want to have one with you because I don't want to have to agree with you. And this was a very close person to me. And it was like, so interesting that she was so threatened, I guess, is the word to like sit down. And, you know, I wouldn't have asked her to agree with me. I just wanted someone to hear me out. And to say, like, to just know that to just, I guess, acknowledge that I am a person. Yeah, like this conversation left me feeling like I'm stupid, or like I'm weird. And I didn't have a right, you know, to have the feelings that I did. And so that's the beauty of the work. And that's the beauty of being a good listener, you all know of certain friends that you have that are just great listeners, that just make you feel so much better after you call them, you know, after something happens, and you just want to vent. And they just make you feel better. And then you all know the people that you call and you're kind of just like, that wasn't such a great conversation. It didn't leave me, you know, feeling that great. And wouldn't it be amazing if your spouse was that great friend, that person that was the best listener. So you wouldn't have to turn elsewhere, that your spouse would be the person that you turn to and you would walk away feeling really satisfied. So I guess this is an invitation, you can forward this podcast issue to your spouse if you feel comfortable. And just kind of say, you know, I'd love to learn how to be a great listener for you. So I can be that person for you so we can turn together to each other. You may not want to forward it to them because you think they're a bad listener to kind of imply, you know, you may want to listen to what they're saying, because I don't feel like you hear me, you may not want to do that, that might be a little bit. No, but I mean, No, I said the opposite way that you, you would say, I want to learn how to listen to you. So I want you to hear this and see how we can practice this together. Yeah, like let's practice really great listening together. Or if you don't feel comfortable doing that, then don't just become that friend, become that person that everybody knows they can turn to you because you are an awesome listener. And you don't just say things like, you know, someone's sharing with you their pain and you say, I hear, we have someone like that, you know, I hear, and that really does nothing. And it takes a lot of intention because especially if it's a friend, it's one thing, but when it's close, when it hits close to home, or when they're complaining about you, we generally get defensive, we've talked a lot about this about how the brain operates when we feel unsafe. When we feel threatened, we are not, our instinct is not to kind of be calm and present and really be open to anything else. We're just kind of caught up in ourselves. So this really takes intention to really stop what you're doing to get out of yourself to not feel threatened. And to just acknowledge that the other person has their own opinion, and you don't have to agree, and you don't have to, and you don't even have to change because of it. No, it's no, no expectations of anything just being present and being there for the other person. And a lot of times when you do that, their complaints go down when you when someone feels validated. The anxiety that they often have about the situation dies down. They don't even need to keep harping on it because they finally felt heard. Right, like after that situation with that woman this week, after I spoke to you, I really haven't brought the issue up at all this week. I don't think I think it's just been, you know, finished for me, but it was just like, I was left in the lurch because you know, it just felt not complete, but now it does. So I thank you. You're welcome. And for those help you do that. And really have to learn how to do it. It's not, you know, we always said, we've talked, we talk about this a lot that when we first got married, you know, you always say like, Oh, I was a good listener, and I always thought I was a good listener. And people used to always used to come to me to tell them about their problems. I guess that's kind of how I, this is an ideal field for me for me to be into was just gravitated towards me to talk to me because it was easy. I guess I was tried present. But as much as I was thought I was a good listener, when I didn't really know what validating was, I mean, I don't think I tried to tell people, try to correct people. But especially though, if I got threatened, I would be very difficult. Like when we would have if we had a discussion about something, if you're upset with me about something that I disagree with, it wouldn't be hard for me to say, well, that makes sense. If I hadn't learned how to do that, I don't think I'd be able to do that. That would not be my instinct. My instinct would be to defend myself and to prove why I'm right. Or why these accusations are false. And I think that's, I think for most of us, that's the case. So it's really something we have to learn. But the good news is, is it can be learned. And it can shift the dynamic. Because once you validate, it just it changes the whole relationship. It's not about that you're not no longer in a power struggle, where it's you know, who's right, who's wrong. But I don't have to agree with you all the time. But I, I can acknowledge how you're feeling. And you have a right to feel the way you do. And we all have our own stories, we all have our own reactions, based on our own past, based on our own life experiences, we are not identical, as much as we think we have a lot in common. But we really don't think the same way and see things the same way. You can think of it as like, when you're traveling to another country, you know, you, you really work hard to be able to speak their language or be able to understand the nuances of that culture. And you can think of your spouse as a world of their own. And when you're, you know, kind of listening to them, you're almost crossing the bridge into that other world with another language and with another reality. Problem is, it's, it's threatening. Because our spouses, it's too close to home. Like, one story I like to tell is that there was a rabbi orthodox Jewish rabbi. And he had, he liked to have people over his house for, for Shabbos, for the Sabbath, to experience a traditional, a traditional Sabbath. And there was one student that used to come to his classes and he would invite them, her to come for, for the Sabbath. And she was just always kind of reluctant. And she was an anthropologist and she spent a few months in Africa studying the pygmies. And he said, No, you don't have an, you're not afraid of spending time with the pygmies, but you're afraid of spending time with the orthodox rabbi. And the moral of the story was that because it hit too close to home, because she wasn't afraid of becoming a pygmy. She knew that that was a different culture. She could look at it from the outside and respect it and not judge it and not feel threatened. But once it hit close to home, once she was with someone from her own, from her own tradition, and maybe she felt threatened that she had to. You didn't say she was Jewish. I didn't say she was Jewish. I thought I did. Maybe she found someone from her own tradition where she felt that if I go to his house, maybe I'm going to want to be more observant or Sabbath observant. You know, that was too threatening for her. So she wasn't able to look at it from an outsider's perspective, from his neutral perspective, because it helped close to home. And I think that's the same thing for dealing with loved ones that with mothers it's easier to, you know, you can go to another country and hold the space for those other people. But you're, there's a certain threat that if I acknowledge your point of view, that means that I have to change. If I acknowledge, you know, the culture in, you know, it was in Babwe. And I go there and appreciate it. I don't feel threatened that I have to become like that. But if I, if I acknowledge my spouse, then there is a threat that, you know, maybe I'm going to have to do something different. And we want to just, again, one of the biggest things is creating safety. And that's why having a structured way to dialogue about frustrations is very helpful, because it takes away that threat. It takes, it helps calm the brain down. So we don't have to go into that protective mode, which gets us in so much trouble and leads us to, you know, reacting. So I think that the validation is, is one of the most important pieces of the dialogue process, because it shows that you, that you've really got it, that you really made the trip to the other person's world, that you really kind of gotten out of yourself to experience that other person's reality. So if you're wanting to know where to go to learn these techniques and to learn effective communication, I recommend you go back to the book that we sent you in our first email to you and reread it, you know, over and over again until you really master effective communication. And then we've just started, so we can be more personal on how we reach each of you that need some more help. We've opened six spots per month to kind of just talk to one on one over the phone with Shlomo, calling it a marriage clarity call. So for 30 minutes, you can apply, just email us and say that you'd like to have a phone call one on one with Shlomo and you can apply to, you know, be one of the six so you can really like learn how to implement the information that we send you specifically to your situation if you need further assistance. And it's free. There's no obligation. It's just a clarity call. So I'm inviting you to, you know, to reread the book. And then if you, if you feel that you need more assistance and direction, you can email us at info at themarriagerestorationproject.com. So that's it for today. Thank you so much for listening and for sharing my experience with me. And we'll stay tuned for to stay tuned to hear the next podcast episode. Have a wonderful day. Bye bye. We hope you've enjoyed listening to today's topic. We'll be back again to focus on another topic that is sure to help you with your marriage. For any questions or concerns, please email us at info at themarriagerestorationproject.com with best wishes for your relationship success.